The Chaotic Failure of Belgium’s Golden Generation



Belgium’s Golden Generation, featuring world-class talents like Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois, and Vincent Kompany, promised to conquer the football world. With a squad packed with Premier League and La Liga stars, Belgium was expected to win major tournaments like the World Cup and Euro.

But despite their immense talent and high expectations, this “Golden Generation” never secured the glory they were destined for. In this video, we’ll analyze key moments, tactical errors, and what really went wrong with Belgium’s Golden Generation, including:

The heartbreak of the 2018 World Cup semifinals vs. France
Eden Hazard’s decline and injuries
Kevin De Bruyne’s role underutilized in international tournaments
Romelu Lukaku’s struggles in key matches
The managerial impact of Roberto Martínez
Missed opportunities at Euro 2016 and Euro 2020
Join us as we deep dive into Belgium’s journey from hope to disappointment. Was this a wasted generation? Can Belgium ever recover?

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0:00-0:59 Leave a like if you enjoyed, it really supports the channel
1:00-1:59 The Beginning of Belgium’s Golden Generation
2:00-4:05 The Rise Belgium Football
4:06-9:34 Belgium’s Golden Generation
9:35-13:29 Terrible Team Chemistry
13:30-17:29 The Fall of Belgium’s Golden Generation

#Football #Soccer #Belgium

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40 thoughts on “The Chaotic Failure of Belgium’s Golden Generation”

  1. Nice video but the monotone narration is just too much for me to watch till the end. I checked other videos and I have the feeling i'm stuck in a time loop because of the narration..it goes like nanana nanana nanana…nanana nanana nananana….

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  2. genuine question: Could a manager with a very strong personality demand the players drop their personal resentments and play together as a team?
    Players at press conferences disrespecting their teammates should be punished as an example.
    Also, as someone outside of Europe, can you explain if there are usually tensions between the two language/ethnic groups of Belgium? And if so, how much that contributed to team lack of cohesion?
    Great video, very juicy gossip!! Sorry for the fans of Belgium, though.

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  3. Belgium had the same issues England had in the 2000s, lack of team chemistry, squad depth and big match awareness. It's a shame, they had good players, but at times they looked disjointed. Maybe a new Belgium team with less personal baggage and more team players will emerge in the near future.

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  4. Hazard was their only true maverick, as soon as he fell off, the whole Belgian team fell off. People underrate and downplay Hazard's impact so much. Belgium finished 3rd in WC2018 and Hazard was the second best player in the tournament

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  5. The biggest flaw was having shit managers for most of the time. Especially Wilmots was atrocious. Martinez was more than decent when they were in their prime (2018 world cup against France could have gone either way and we played great football throughout the tournament), but afterwards he kept sticking to his old guard, refusing to make the necessary changes. He's going to make the same mistakes for Portugal because he refuses to drop a 55 or so year old Ronaldo who slows down the whole team.

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  6. In my opinion, the form of Hazard from 2019-2022 was what created the downfall.He literally was Belgiums best player from 2010-2019. His poor form also impacted the entire teams chemistry and it showed how vital he was

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  7. Day 2: Asking for a video about the legendary Juninho (player with the most free kick goals in football history) and his Lyon (the team that won the french league 7 times in a row (something no other French team has achieved).

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  8. Nice video, but just for note, at 12:23 you mention Castagne/Tielemans/Praet, you correctly show Tielemans, but you show Mertens when mentioning Praet, and… is this Castagne ? I can't figure out who this is (the first one) if it's Castagne then it's from a very weird angle haha
    No idea if the idea was to show them but Praet was clearly wrong here
    By the way I'm Belgian, and defeat to Wales is clearly the worst defeat of this generation, worst than defeat to France in 2018.

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  9. Chemistry was always the problem, not good enough coaches and leaving Naingolan out who in his prime was ridic underrated…..2018 was their year. Knocked out by a corner kick goal. Best line up

    …………………..Lukaku
    ……..Hazard………………..Mertens

    ………………………Debryne

    ………….Naingolan…Wittsel

    …Vert……Kopany…Alder…Munier

    Attack in 4-2-1-3 and defend in a 4-3-3 Debryne dropping to the right

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  10. As a Dutchman there were times i was impressed by the Red Devils squad and they truly could make history but it was indeed the lack of chemistry. But this video showing much more what happened outside the fields tells me more now. It kinda reminds me that these things also happened in the past at the Dutch national anthem which costed us great opportunities to perform or even a trophy.

    For example in the 70s when dutch football was in their prime with Total football, Ajax and Feyenoord were winning Champions Leagues and in the national team they were doing great with players like Cruijff, Neeskens and Van Hanegem. But there was also a great generation of PSV with players like Van Der Kuijlen (all time topscorer eredivisie) and goalkeeper Van Beveren. But first names were treated like Kings and got a higher salary because of their status, while from 1974 on, PSV would become dominant in the Netherlands. Arguments about calling names and not equal salary resulting in not passing the ball to PSV players and suddenly stepping out of the national team. Coaches unfortunately choose sides instead of doing something for both sides. Who knows we could have won the world in 1974 if the PSV players were the missing pieces of great 70s generation…

    1978 was different because the world cup took place in a filthy dictatorship.

    Last example was between 1988 and 1990 (world cup Italy). The Netherlands won the euros and we were hoping they could perform the same way on the world cup. But when coach Michels left, the team wanted a new coach and they decided to choose between three coaches (including Cruijff, which was the favourite after voting) but they got someone else and the players were disappointed. Also the chemistry was not there because everyone felt like the star of the team and they should be the best on the field to bring the world cup, a so called patat-generatie (Chips-generation). Result; 3 draws in the group stage, knock out from West Germany in the last 16, with the Spit-incident.

    Last time we had a crisis was after the world cup 2014, but that was more about the continuously switching between coaches and staff. But we missed qualification to 2016, 2018 for sure because of that and some skilled players retarded. While Belgium was doing great!

    Conclusion, it might be more of a low country thing. Where big countries like Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina could succeed or overcome. Smaller countries like Belgium and the Netherlands are highly fragile to greed, rivalry and weakness.

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  11. Coming from a Croatian myself, they were much better side and all they did was finishing 3rd at the world cup what Croatia managed to achieve at two back to back world cups… its clear that they lacked chemistry and a bit of luck, what Croatia had in the end

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  12. This team was so much fun to watch, they went to Fifa ranking 1, yes, not a big prize, but what a joy, so happy and proud to have been able to witness that for a country of 12 million people. And everybody wanted to watch the Belgians, they made us proud, yes, they did

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